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Architects: Memola Estúdio, Vitor Penha
- Area: 650 m²
- Year: 2014
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Photographs:Marcelo Magnani
Text description provided by the architects. Located near Sao Paulo, this 560 square meters country house fits perfectly into the 9 meters slope that culminates to a preserved Mata Atlantica patch of forest. The house is comprised of three volumes that are united by a wide concrete wall that marks the entrance and leads the sight to the grove crossing the house’s simple volumes. The solid brick walls are the same color as the local soil, which gives the impression that the house sprouted from the ground. The access to the house leads us 16 steps into the ground, reinforcing this sensation.
The bricks were settled rustically, with the use of residues and broken bricks, making a direct connection to the large and small pieces that compose life. All volumes have green roofs, allowing for total integration with the surroundings. The first volume is partially underground, creating a discrete façade from the street view, and, in the heart of this volume, there is a large skylight with glass frames that permanently shed it with natural light.
In the interior, the rough cast plaster finish and the visible concrete structure, as well as all the plumbing and electrical wirings, prove that the interior structure of a house can be as aesthetic as functional. The floors are made with reforested wood, and there are hydraulic tiles with podotactile texture in both walls and floors of all the bathrooms, creating a tactile experience and reminding us that nature has concave and convex textures. The connection between the bedrooms and the exterior is made with large windows equipped with wood shutters to help control the light.
The third volume, the lowest of all (6 meters below the sidewalk), houses the social areas, which are open to the landscape and partially covered by a rustic vine veranda. The Hijau stone pool has therapeutic properties that lead to wellbeing from the connection with nature. The different shades of green are intensified in contact with water, creating the sensation of being in a lake. The wooden deck gives access to the metal staircase with its grid floor, allowing the passage of light and water, leading up to the roof and its infinite view of the forest.
The firm has conceived this house to be connected to the simplicity of nature and left its interior bare, exposing its veins and bones. The brutality of this concept has to be carefully arranged so that the result doesn’t lose its poetry. This is our mission: to maintain a curious search for Beauty and that this view, open to possibilities, be also a new outlook on life.
